M42 from Foggybottom Obs.

This is the first image I have bad the courage to post. Imaged on 11 March '08 It is a stack of nine 5min subs. Twelve were made but three were rejectd. All were made with a Nikon D50 unmodified behind an IDAS LPR filter. Scope is a Vixen ED80sf piggybacked on a Meade 10" LX200 guided by a SBIG ST237. Imaging software is MaxIM DL4/DSLR. Initial stacking and processing in MaxIm, finishing in PS Elements 6.0

Gary Caldwell
Foggybottom Obs., Chattanooga,TN
[email protected]

Equipment:
Meade LX200 perm. mount
Vixen ED80sf
Orion Starblast (imaging ver.)
Nikon D50 ST237

Attached Image:

Gary, welcome to THE DARK SIDE... 8)
That's a nice FIRST post... thanks for sharing!

One thing though, careful when "sharpening" a shot, as sometimes we pull TOO MUCH detail, making our shot lose the "natural" look... 8)


Keep it up! 8)

Hello Gary. Nice image. You even managed to capture the Running Man nebula pretty well too!

You chose a hard object for a learning imager. M42 has such a wide range of brightness that it is very difficult to capture. If you get the dimmer areas to show up, the brighter areas go completely white. Most experienced imagers try to use a range of exposures to capture the bright and dim areas, and then combine them in Photoshop or some other software package. This technique allows the entire range of brightness to retain detail, but it requires more advanced processing skills. You might want to give it a try. Here is a link with some info you might be interested in reviewing:

http://www.astropix.com/PFA/SAMPLE4A/SAMPLE4A.HTM

Take a look.... and keep on posting those images!
Cheers,
Tyler